Mira
by thedutchessai
Summary: Antonio is forced to think back on an old romance and feel guilty for his bachelor lifestyle when what starts out as just another day at the office quickly turns into a family reunion. Rated T for language.
1. Mira

I don't own Antonio or any one else from the Women of the Otherworld series (even though I wish I did) they belong to Kelley Armstrong. However, I do own Mirella and the secretary, and I did think up this little plot I threw them all into.

I've had Antonio in my head for awhile and there's not enough focus on him, this plot is kind of floating in my brain, so let me know if there's anyone who wants to read more about him, Venice, and the deal with that new part time secretary.

Mira

I was on a date with a woman who Jeremy would describe as fitting the archetype of my type; blonde hair with a beautiful yet undistinguishable face. She was old enough to drink but young enough that she couldn't contribute to any type of real conversation, so I kept things simple for her. Yet in between her practiced laughs I found myself back in a stifling hot room in Venice watching delicate hands trip over the buttons of a cotton dress. I could feel the coarseness of the bed linens on my kneecaps, each individual thread scratching my skin as I watched that small hand waltz through the air and carefully grip the rods of that old brass bedpost.

There she was with no show, no make up or 300-dollar French lace lingerie. All she had was an intangible boldness that I hadn't ever encountered again.

It was then that I realized how pathetic I was. I felt as if I'd been banished to some kind of emotional purgatory, trapped somewhere between a lousy date and a memory so painfully wonderful that it made me grind my teeth. A memory so vivid that I could hear it breathing, sense its heart beating over the sounds of credit cards being swiped and napkins shifting impatiently on people's laps.

I was brought out of it, violently ripped into the present when she reached over the table to touch my arm, it was so fake, so staged that it jarred me. That feeling of her acrylic nails scraping against the pinstripes of my suit. Tara, Mandy, Lisa, Marie, whatever her name was, it didn't matter, they were all the same. I played their games; I let them believe that I was the rich powerful executive who expected them to pay off that 400-dollar meal they just ate. I let myself be coerced into having that type of stifling, unimaginative sex with Gina, Monica, and Kellie. In New York, Miami, France and Spain but not Venice, that was her place, her city. In my mind Mirella and Venice, Mirella and Italy were all the same thing. In any other city I could self medicate with sex and nice dinners with lackluster conversation, but Italy was off limits. I'd be damned if I turned it into a crack house the way I had with New York, turning the Ritz and the plaza into places where I shot myself up with mechanical sex from robotic girls. And silently snuck out in the morning with the hotel bill hidden in my suit jacket, carefully hiding it with the same shame as an addict not wanting any one to see their track marks. I'd go home and shower until my hands turned red and the water started to get cold and it was time for me to start my morning regiment. Putting on cufflinks, taking a car service I would go through all of it in a miraculously numb fog.

When I arrived in my office, the shame almost disappeared, but for some reason the morning after I'd had a night like that I could never look my part time secretary in the eye. She was young, with the type of dress up clothes she probably kept hidden in her closest until she had to wear them for spring choral concerts or special school assemblies. Yet she unnerved me somehow, she was all smiles and good morning that were carefully delivered to my desk each morning in an artfully toned down Brooklyn accent. For some inexplicable reason I felt as if she knew what type of man I was, that she knew about the women, the frivolity of it all and that it disappointed her. That's what ate away at me, it wasn't the look of random strangers on the street or the hotel staff when I checked out and told them to have flowers and breakfast sent up to the room, it was the look on the face of one secretary, who couldn't have been a day older than twenty one, as she handed me a cup of coffee in the morning.


	2. Gia

A/N: I apologize for the severe lack of updating but the academic semester got pretty hectic and stressful, and that definitely gave me a severe case of writer's block. Thankfully it's summer now and I'm spending a good part of it studying Italian in Italy. It's a beautiful place and I'm pretty sure the lack of stress and the setting are re-sparking my creativity. As per usual I own absolutely nothing that is related to The Women of the Otherworld and Men of the Otherworld universe, or any other work that is a part of Kelley Armstrong's universe, Kelley Armstrong is the lucky owner. However I do own Giovanna Agnello.

**Ashes2Dust18: **I'm glad you like the story thus far and I remember Antonio always being portrayed as the boisterous and upbeat one of the group, however I felt as if on the inside he felt lonely at not ever having anyone there for him, especially after clay found Elena and Jeremy started something with Jamie. I always had a feeling there was something hiding behind that laugh you know.

**maveldiaz: **Antonio is actually my favorite character in the series, I wish he got more scenes in the book, and I'm glad there are other Antonio fans out there.

It was Friday, 8:59am to be exact and I could already hear her heels clicking away from the elevator as they carefully made their way towards my desk. The part time secretary again. I knew it was wrong not to use her first name, to always refer to her with the title she used on her W-2 forms and meager student résumé, but it helped me distance myself from her somehow. She only came in a few days a week but Giovanna Agnello made me feel guilty and uncomfortable, and I always managed to convince myself that I was never quite sure of what she wanted. Every Friday she asked to join me for lunch and I always politely declined. This Friday would most likely be no different and as she marched over to my desk with my preferred cup of brewed crack laced with sugar from Starbuck's, I was already dreading the question she'd ask me like a kid what had just been called to the principle's office. She placed the cup down softly before she spoke, and carefully bit her lip in an expression I felt as if I had seen before, but on a different face in a completely different era. looked nothing like the woman who's scent I had traced nearly every day along the canals, her features weren't as delicate as Mirella, and she was darker, her lips slightly fuller and her eyes were a dark green instead of the brown I had familiarized myself with, but they had the same nervous smiles, cocked eyebrows, and almost visible impatience.

''About lunch''

Her words jumbled up my thoughts and I wanted to groan, she was a good secretary, one that I hired at the last minute to replace the part time one that kept conveniently finding ways to surreptitiously show off her cleavage and bend over whenever the close fitting fabric of her work pants were at eye level.

Instead of backing off she continued, ''It's not anything, you know, sexual if that's what you're worried about. It's about the business internship you've got. I figured since I see you all the time in here you'd know about it. Information only, I'm not gonna try and bribe you for it with a blowjob.''

The coffee almost did a detour up through my mouth and out my noise. I could feel it stinging my lungs as soon as the word blowjob rolled off her tongue. Dealing with mutts and dissident pack members was something I was quite adroit at, even business meetings and the tyrannical executives and clients I had seen stroll through my office over the years had never really managed to catch me off guard. But for the first time since I was in Venice, a woman, an Italian woman had succeeded in throwing me off guard. I knew corporate procedure dictated that I should probably reprimand her, fire here, place her on suspension but the wolf side appreciated the honesty, the straightforwardness that most human beings were too reluctant to ever give out.

''12:30''

She didn't smile or blush as if she had only been feigning innocence in order to seduce me, instead she did the most undignified thing imaginable and scratched the back of her leg with her left foot before she turned to walk out. As she left she touched the edge of the doorframe and spoke before she marched out.

''Have you ever been to Venice Mr. Sorrentino?''

It was a simple question but it unnerved me enough to make me regret making a lunch appointment with her. I knew it was irrational for me to react that way to a girl that couldn't have been a day over 21. One who had a resume that was almost purely academic, but was filled with awards for essays, and claims that she could speak Italian fluently. I knew it was irrational for me to turn away and face the window even though she couldn't see my face as I answered her question. ''Hasn't everyone?''

With that the door closed softly and even after I heard her shoes arrive safely at her desk where she threw them into the bottom draw with a soft thud, I still felt as if she was standing in my doorway.


	3. Antonio

A/N: And here's another chapter. I already have the one after this started as well. As per usual I own absolutely nothing that is related to The Women of the Otherworld and Men of the Otherworld universe, or any other work that is a part of Kelley Armstrong's universe, Kelley Armstrong is the lucky owner. However I do own Giovanna Agnello.

Noon came and I could hear Nick sauntering over to 's desk and the beginning of their usual script. Nick had inherited the same ease I had with women; he could ease them out of their offices, out of nightclubs, and out of their underwear. But when he turned seventeen I had made it clear that his sexual hunting ground did not extend to my office, so the two of them always kept things pg-13. He'd call her Brooklyn and they'd spend the next five minutes arguing over which borough made the best pizza and whether that woman he had the hots for at Starbucks was seeing someone. I never asked Nick whether he felt strange around her, but the daily repartees that unfolded between the two of them irked me. Despite my rule I would have preferred it if he was trying to pick her up, but they sounded more like two guys having a beer than two people with uncontrollable sexual tension. I questioned him about it before and he told me that it was nice to have a conversation with a woman that didn't have to take place while one of them was horizontal, so I left the subject alone. If he needed to have one casual human associate I wasn't going to ruin it for him.

I tried to concentrate on paper work for the remaining thirty minutes but I couldn't clear my head. Her question was still ringing in my ears even though I knew it was highly improbable that she knew anything about me and Venice. It was even more unlikely that she knew about the blistering studio apartment or that Jeremy had almost gone there in person to drag me back to New York, that for the first time since I had met Nick's mother, I had shifted from being a level headed responsible father and executive, to my best friend thinking that I had completely lost my mind. That she knew I had fathered a daughter. I hadn't allowed myself to think those words in almost two decades, and the way it seemed to invade my brain disturbed me. I formed the words of that thought, said it to myself three times like some sort of magical incantation and the honesty of it seemed to break down months worth of denial that I had barricaded myself behind. Only two people besides Jeremy knew I had a daughter, one of them I hadn't seen in what felt like forever, and the other, the other had been handing me faxes, files, paperclips, and coffee cups for eight months.

I jumped out of the office chair and strolled over to her desk, it was exactly 12:15, and I couldn't wait one more second. Nick abruptly paused mid sentence and the Brooklynite conversationalist didn't utter a word to me. Instead, she briskly opened the bottom draw of her desk and slipped on a pair of sneakers; a pair of navy blue high top converses that seemed completely at odds with her black work skirt and white blouse. But there was something so carefree about the way she had styled herself, that I almost envied her. My days for running around and doing what pleased me were long over, even by the time I was her age I was already an adult. She stood up without saying anything and took her wallet and a pair of sunglasses, before raising an eyebrow at me.

''Low key alright'', with that she turned and walked to the elevator and I followed her, leaving the question on Nick's face hanging in the air.

It was an uncomfortable elevator ride, made even worse by her constant fidgeting and the way she kept readjusting her sunglasses. I wanted to talk but my mouth was dry and all my words kept getting stuck to the top of my tongue. For those mere thirty seconds everything felt tight and heavy, my watch felt as if it were weighing me down, and her lip biting was so constant I thought there'd be a gaping hole in it before we even made it out of the building.

''You up to walking?'' It wasn't really an option so much as it was a hope that she'd say yes, being in an elevator was bad enough, I didn't want to see how it would be to brave being locked in a car that was at a standstill in Manhattan traffic. She was skittish and looked like she wanted to run, so she merely shrugged and gave me a typical answer for someone of her age.

''Yeah whatever''

We walked for four blocks in silence, with her keeping a three-person distance between us the entire time. I didn't need to be a werewolf, an expert hunter to notice that her behavior was perplexing; she was always professional and calm. Dependable, business like, and the woman wearing chipped nail polish and converse sneakers was virtually unrecognizable from the one that was able to schedule all my meetings, and handle phone calls from Milan in flawless Italian while sending paperwork to the accounting department. She looked younger and afraid, the confidence I had seen when I interviewed her was absent, leaving me with a girl who looked as if she had gotten caught shoplifting at the local mall when she was supposed to be in fifth period algebra.

At the restaurant I pulled out the chair for her and she looked at it waiting for me to sit down before she sat herself sideways in the chair, almost falling off the edge of the seat as she turned her head to look at me. She folded her sunglasses and placed them next to the saltshaker, not even bothering to read the menu when the waiter came and handed it to her.

''You wanted to know about the internship?'' Even I could hear the ridiculousness of my own question. Anyone could see that it was quite clearly a ploy to have a private conversation.

She dropped the menu almost as if the sound of my voice had startled her, and cleared her throat before she spoke. ''It's not gonna matter. You think they'd let me smoke in here?''

She nervously ran her hand through her hair and took her bag out, rummaging through it for what I presumed was a lighter, before she pulled out an envelope and placed it on the table.

I barely glanced at the envelope all I could think was that she smoked, she was barely twenty-one and my daughter smoked. Suddenly I didn't know how to refer to her, my daughter felt wrong, werewolves didn't have daughters, and her first name felt as if it contained far too much intimacy. I didn't know her, beyond the relationship we had as employer and employee. If I wanted to keep this lunch meeting going properly I was going to have to try and see her as I did before, as a secretary, so I addressed her formerly, even though the words brushed uncomfortably brushed against my tongue as I spoke.

''Miss Agnello I''

She interrupted me by pushing the salt and pepper off the table and placing the envelope on my empty bread plate. ''Open it''. I glanced at it completely perplexed. She was acting erratic and nervous. All I could smell was fear and the terrible stench of tobacco as she stuck a cigarette in her mouth and steadied her lighter, waiting for just the right moment to ignite it. I broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out a square silk scarf, a scarf that I hadn't seen in at least twenty years.

''Where did you get this?'' I already knew the answer, I knew only one woman who this could have belonged to. I knew it belonged to her mother, Mirella, She lit her cigarette before she answered me, and shoved the lighter back into her purse.

''From my mother.'' She stood up and ripped her bag so violently from the back of the chair that it fell over onto the floor. And before I could even answer back she turned and walked out of the restaurant, leaving her sunglasses on the table.

I grabbed the scarf in my fist and went out after her, steadily following the line of cigarette smoke and the scuffed blue converses as they made their way back to the office. When she saw me behind her she threw her cigarette and bolted to the elevator, pressing the door close button so fast you'd swear an assassin was after her. I leaned against the wall and decided to give her a minute, I felt as if I was cornering a fawn or a rabbit. I waited, turning the scarf over in my hand to avoid the chaos that would be my office. I knew the scarf belonged to Mira, I knew it even before I saw her initials hand stitched on the left hand corner. As I gingerly fingered the blue script letters, I felt a wave of nausea rise from the pit of my stomach, the way I had felt after my first kill when I was sixteen years old. How I felt when Gia stared at me every morning, and when she bit her lip in the elevator, and all I could do was push the up button and enter the elevator, for the first time in my life I was speechless.

As soon as I got through the etched glass doors I could see her frantically throwing everything from her desk into a bag, while a fresh cigarette threatened to fall from her mouth and set the whole office on fire. I carefully walked over to sit on her desk, and grasped the edge of it while she scolded me; all attempts to tone down her accent were completely lost as she laid into me.

''How could you not notice? Are you fucking blind? Just forget it, I knew this idea was fucked in the ass to begin with, I should've just left this alone.''

The entire floor was quiet, the musical sounds of typing and phones ringing had all come to an end, as everyone with a Sorrentino ID Badge collectively held a breath. Pens fell to the floor and a series of mechanical clicks went off as every available being behind a desk placed their calls on hold.

''Left what alone'' I was well aware of what the what was, but I was afraid that if the words came out of my mouth that I'd never be able to get rid of them.

'' Just I need to think, don't follow me, don't call my number I just need to think. I thought, I don't know what I was thinking''

I knew that I couldn't say anything. Admitting to her that I was her father came with it's own set of complications. I felt my teeth grind as I mentally prepared a way to get rid of her to ensure that she wouldn't try to call me after she had time to think. I had never felt so low, I felt lower than a mutt thinking of a way I could make it clear to her that I didn't want anymore contact, that I would send her last check by mail and lie through my teeth as I told her that I had no idea what she was talking about. That I could recommend a good psychologist because I had never seen that scarf in my life and if she didn't calm down that I would have her removed by security. But I couldn't bring myself to say any of it, I wanted to tear apart all the traditions that called for the disposing of humans, the rules that had led to the death of Nick's mother, that had led to this young woman unraveling in front of my entire office. So I tried to think of what I would do if this were Nick who needed me, and I spoke to her as calmly as possible.

''I'm not going to make you talk but at least, let's just wait in my office until you calm down and then we can decide what to do or you can go back home when your head's clear.''

It clearly wasn't the reaction she was expecting and she dropped her box to the desk with a loud thud before I carefully walked her into my office.


	4. Show and Tell

A/N: This one is from Gia's point of view I've been itching to have her talk.

I own nothing and no one from the Otherworld series; those rights belong to Kelley Armstrong, but Gia's personality did come from my brain.

It was clearly one of those days where I should have just gotten out of bed lifted my skirt up and bent over because it was pretty clear from the start that life had every intention of fucking me in the ass. For eight months I had worked in this office trying to work up the nerve to rat myself out, eight months I had spent trying to get to know a man that had always been a shadow to me by refilling his coffee cup and asking him out for lunch every Friday, and now that it was just the two of us alone in his office with everything out in the open all I wanted to do was run out the door. I hadn't felt this nervous and embarrassed since seventh grade when Sister Mary Katherine caught me making out with Carmine Russo before the fourth period bell rang. I couldn't even look him in the eye, I had always planned to tell him this, to let this huge lifetime channel level epic secret out, but I had never planned for the afterwards. I had never tried to imagine what he would say to me, if he would be able to tell me why my magic had been so off target lately, why it had always been stronger than my mom's and the other witches in the coven, if he could tell me what I really was. And just the smallest part of me, the cheesy part that I never let out, wondered if maybe he'd actually want my phone number. I didn't need cards or gifts to make up for all the birthdays and bullshit holidays, but if he asked for my house phone number, the one that wasn't on my résumé, maybe I could fool myself into believing we'd have the kind of thing where one day he'd call just to see if I was okay, or ask me how my day was. That last thought made the back of throat itch, and I shut that side of my brain off, there was no way I was going to cry or show weakness, so I took a deep breath and decided that since I had already thrown tact out of the window that I may as well keep up the good work.

''What are you?''

There was just the slightest glint of shock in his eyes, as if he was taken a back by my question but I wasn't going to back down. Every time I came near him and Nick I got a staticky almost electric feeling on the back of my neck, like the one you get on your fingertips when you run all over the carpet with socks on and then are dumb enough to touch the doorknob. Plus my magic was completely out of control. Way out of control.

''I wanna know what you are, look this isn't about some kind of back child support thing or me expecting you to take me to the father daughter dinner dance, I just want to know what you are.''

''I'm the current chief of this company, I'm Italian American, a New Yorker, does that suffice as an answer.''

I sighed; of course my long lost father had not only tried to bullshit me but he also had to be a complete smart ass while doing it. That must've be punishment for all those times I gave the nuns at school lip, or jumped the subway turnstile because it was 3am and I was too drunk to remember which pocket I'd put my metro card in. I still couldn't look at him, even as I went over and sat on the leather couch and hastily started unfastening the shoelaces to my sneakers as I spoke.

''Not to lay on the guilt or anything but I kinda thought that after not being around for twenty years that when I asked you, you'd just spill your secrets and let me know whether you fell into the animal, vegetable or mineral category.''

He response was so poised and diplomatic that I wouldn't have expected anything less from a CEO.

'' to be quite frank I have no idea what you're referring to, maybe you should take a few minutes to collect your thoughts.''

I took off my sneakers and dropped them to the ground. Right away I could recognize his ''meeting voice'' the one he used to reach compromises over business proposals and sway important clients, and it instantly pissed me off. Even though I had told myself I wouldn't give a rat's ass whether he wanted a relationship with me and that this was purely for information purposes only to find out why I suddenly couldn't levitate a piece of paper without it bursting into flames, the formality he had used to refer to me made my chest feel like I had chased a shot of vodka with half a cup of hot sauce. The word miss stung me from my ears all the way down to the loose strings on the tips of my socks. I tried to focus on something, anything other than his eyes, and once I had safely started counting the number of white pinstripes on his suit jacket I regained enough composure to speak again.

''Look I'm not tryin to be rude or anything but can we just cut the shit. I know something's up with you; you and Nick make my hair stand up like I touched a goddamn Tesla coil. I'd tell you what I am but you gotta go first, age before beauty and all, so I'll just tell you that whatever I am I know enough to figure out that you're not human.''

I bit my lip, and tasted the saltiness as the skin cracked open. It felt like hours before he finally gave me a response, and even after all my attempts to grow some linguistic balls, he lied to me.

''If I knew what you were referring to , I would acknowledge your concerns but in light of your outbursts I'm advising you to take some time to think this over.''

There were certain things that I could handle in this universe, being a no-show for the first twenty years of my life I had handled that pretty well, but lying was something I couldn't handle. I just couldn't take being bullshitted, and it was clear from that point on that I was going to have to up my game. My teeth reluctantly let go of my lip and I pulled my socks off before I balled them up and tucked them into my left shoe. Then for the first time since I had gotten into the corner office I looked my boss, my father into the eyes as I spoke.

''Would you talk to Nick like this? I've been patient, I've worked here for fuck long and I even dropped hints that I wasn't human and all you do is just stand there and try to talk to me like I'm a crazy person. I'm the one putting my shit on the line here and you still won't tell me dick.''

My hands started shaking and I couldn't tell if it was from anger or if I just needed another cigarette break. I tried to run my fingers through my hair but it was so tangled from running away from the restaurant that my hand got stuck in it midway. The room was dead silent, something I said must've gotten through to him, because he let out a breath and I saw the corporate mediator routine drop. He sat down beside me and I could hear the leather couch creak as it touched all those pinstripes on his suit, the same stripes I tried to count again. I got as far as fifty before our eyes met and we both looked at each other like this was the first time we ever met. When he spoke his voice was low.

''Animal.''

My father was staring at me, and all that urinal mouth toughness I'd had before seemed to wash away as nervousness took over. Nervousness so strong that my stomach felt like it had its own heartbeat and I realized that I had not idea what the hell I had even asked the guy.

''What?''

''You asked me animal vegetable or mineral. I'd say I'm more of the first category. Now I believe we had a deal.''

I leaned my head back against the wall and brought my feet under me.

''I can't. not until you stop looking at me.'' I didn't start talking again until his gaze lowered to my shoulder but even then the fear wouldn't go away completely. ''I'm a witch, and for the past few months a pretty damn lousy one.''

He nodded and said nothing, and for a while we just sat there awkwardly, like we were at some kind of supernatural AA meeting. It didn't slip my mind how he never went into detail about what animal he was and how that probably meant he didn't trust me. I stood up and walked towards the door, in my head I pieced together from his one word answer and the hitting it making a baby and quitting it storyline that he was some kind of lycanthrope, but I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted him to trust me enough to say it. I got as far as twisting the doorknob before I heard him say my name.

''Giovanna''

He strode across the room carrying my sneakers, and he spoke again as he handed them to me.

''Let's talk about this somewhere else.''

I took the sneakers, slinging them over my shoulder by their laces. As, I followed him out of the office barefoot, I tried desperately not to think about how much of a disaster part two of the most important conversation of my life was gonna be.


	5. Nick

A/N: Another one from Gia's perspective, she might end up being the main narrator for at least another chapter but I do plan on putting Antonio as the narrator again. Unfortunately I own nothing related to the Otherworld and Women of the Otherworld Series because they all belong to Kelley Armstrong. However, I do own my original characters. Also, thanks to Ashes2Dust18 for reviewing, it's always nice to get feedback.

As soon as we got into the elevator Nick was forcing the doors open and slipping in between the two of us, the meat in our awkward Italian sandwich. He was already throwing questions around like a full-blown cop before I even had time to pull a cigarette out from the bottom of my bag.

''What the hell just happened out there?''

I sighed and let my father answer him as I found both a cigarette and my lighter next to an old pack of lifesavers and a crumbled up receipt.

''Nick, I'll discuss this with you when we get back.''

I took my time with the lighter, fumbling awkwardly with it like a nicotine virgin until the elevator doors chimed open and I could see the grey cement walls of the parking garage. I waited until both Sorrentinos climbed out before I stepped onto the cold cement, and felt the layers of old gum rubbing against the soles of my feet, silently wishing that I'd had enough sense to at least put my damn socks back on. As I smoked I could feel Nick eying me before he finally let out what he was thinking.

''Why don't you have shoes on?''

I let out a laugh of smoke and leaned against the wall, looking at the thirty-watt light bulb blinking in the ceiling while I answered him.

''I think you're kind of missing the point Sorrentino Jr.'' That last name seemed to just trip out of my mouth, I'd had an easier time saying the names of ex-boyfriends, but Nick didn't stop spitting out questions and I began to wonder if stubbornness was a genetic thing.

''How can I miss the point when no one well tell me what the fuck is going on?''

His question stayed like that, vibrating off the walls of the parking garage and crashing into rows of acuras and lexuses. All three of us were walking, listening to the echoes of our footsteps and Nick's mind clicking and whirring as he tried to figure out a way to make us spill our guts in the middle of row C6 as casually as if were all sitting around the kitchen table having a family chat about a bad report card, or signing a permission slip to go to the museum. When we got to the black monster of a Mercedes, Sorrentino the elder opened the door for me and I slid in without asking any questions. Before he could even put the key in the ignition Nick slid into the back, slamming the door behind him like he'd gotten into an old cab.

''This is the last time I'm asking''

I tapped my ashes out onto the dashboard and turned around to look at the guy who I had started to like, the one I'd go have greasy dollar slices of pizza with during my lunch break. We'd talked about almost everything and now I felt like so much of a fraud that all I wanted to do was shrink myself down to the size of my cigarette and hide in the glove compartment.

''Baby mama drama.'' I spat out the words so fast that Nick's response was the only thing to clue me in on the fact that I had actually said something, and like everything else I had decided to unleash that day, it was a linguistic doozy.

''You and my father are having a baby? Are you fucking kidding me? Dad you won't even let me date a girl from the office and you get you're twelve-year-old secretary who hasn't even been here for a year knocked up.''

''Nicholas''

It was one word but I could feel the power behind it, with one word he was able to inspire a greater amount of fear than my ma when she middle named me. In the quiet everything Nick had said kept repeating over and over in my head and it made me sick, my brother thought that I was our dad's baby momma, of all the shit that had went wrong today I thought that was definitely the comment that was going to put me in therapy.

''Don't Nicholas me, I can't believe you, and you let me have coffee with her, you let me check out her ass, and the whole time you were doing her on the side.''

When I heard that I knew I had been wrong, hearing my brother say he had checked out my ass was definitely up there with walking in on your parents in the middle of the kind of thing that involves no clothes, candles, wine, and a Barry White CD.

As the car started up my father didn't even have time to fire back because I was already leaping to set the record straight. I could take being the long lost secret love child over being a pregnant office tramp looking for an Italian stallion sugar daddy any day.

''Usually I appreciate your dense side but I'm not fucking him. The whole fucking nc-17 part of the movie already happened. I'm the baby, the momma is in Brooklyn via Venice, and this is the drama.''

I rolled down the window and watched the headlights from what had to be at least six miles of traffic and the chaos caused by buses stopping to unload their passengers and pick up more urban cattle. The awkwardness of our first family vacation was making my heart beat so fast I thought it would break through my ribcage and drop to the floor, still thumping next to my bare feet. I could feel the heavy silence of the Sorrentinos, that's what I was calling them now as I tried desperately to separate my identity from the two men who would probably want nothing to do with me after the day was over, the two guys who would probably get rid of me like my cigarette butt that I watched tumble over the edge of the window until I could only imagine it being crushed by a set of tires.

''You really thought I was the type to go for the whole screwing your older silver fox boss type thing?'' Even as I shoved cigarette number 100 of the day into my mouth I knew that my attempt at making this into one big joke had been pretty tactless, even given my track record.

''Is that all you can say? You tell me that you're my sister, someone I never knew existed, and all you can do is sit up there and crack fucking jokes like we're old college friends?''

''What the fuck do you want me to do Nick? You want me to climb in the back seat with you and hug you and cry about how I always wanted an older brother. And then we can start finishing each other's sentences and dad here can go take us out for icecream.''

''I didn't say that. You can't go turning people's lives upside down and dropping shit on them and then start making jokes. Shouldn't you feel guilty, embarrassed at least. How could you work with us, how could you go out to lunch with me almost every fucking week and laugh and hang out when the entire time you knew I was your brother. You sat in the damn office every week and you knew who we were and now you decided to fucking say something and it's all one big damn joke to you.''

Nick's anger got to me more than it should have, and it was probably because I'd already thought everything he'd said. It was like he had read my mind and then went and brocasted it on national television for the entire world to see, and as he finished his sentence I could feel my knee shaking from the extra shot of adrenaline I always got when I was angry. The nerve endings in tips of my fingers were tingling with that odd sensation that let me know I was headed towards explosion.

''How would you have liked me to say it huh? What was I gonna do, stroll into the office and say hi I'm Giovanna your illegitimate child nice to meet you? Or here's one, I coulda left a post it note on the desk, or sent it in a fucking e-mail. Maybe I shoulda just gone over to your house and knocked on the door wearing a sign. You don't know dick about how hard this is, you think I like laying this shit on you, you think I'm fucking sitting up here in the front seat smiling at all this, that I'm as happy as a cock sitting in a cunt about it, Can you honestly say that's what you think Junior?'

Before Nick could even answer back I heard a voice whose power made me wonder if it would rattle the windshield.

''Enough. Both of you. I want absolute silence until I stop this car and I want all the windows rolled up. Giovanna if you insist on turning your lungs into charcoal that's your business but while you're in this car put the cigarette out and wait until we're not in an enclosed space before you try to set the world record for the shortest time contracting emphysema. And Nicholas I mean it, I want complete silence, not a word until I say so. Is that understood?''

I don't know whether it was because he used to be my boss, or if there was just something about the way he commanded complete submission, but I shut up right away and threw my unfinished cigarette out the window before I rolled it back up again. The part of me that wanted to scream and tell him he had no right to tell me what to do was instantly silenced by the most authoritative voice I'd ever heard in my life. Even though me and my alleged brother were at each other's throats less than forty five seconds ago our father bitching us out seemed to have united us in silence, and that thought scared me shitless. We had cursed at each other, gotten angry, and he had blamed me for acting like a secretive vindictive ass hole, but somewhere in that linguistic melee we had acted like siblings. I'd had my first fight with my older brother, and it made my eyes and nose sting. We were both gigantic, hot headed, cursing pain in the asses and I didn't know what to make of it. The sound of a truck driving past us drew my attention back to the window and I watched the world. I read the signs as I went further north, as the car and our problems went past Harlem, the Bronx, which was the farthest north I'd ever been, and even Westchester. We were upstate now, what my friends and I called no man's land, hick town, and the other New York. I kept my eyes closed until I felt the car stop, and I saw a house that looked like it had come out of one of those decorating magazines. It was still quiet, and Nick and I squirmed in our seats like two kindergarteners too afraid to say anything during quiet time.

''Giovanna, you and Nicholas will follow me inside the house, and then I'll start the discussion. I'm assuming you both have had long enough to remember how old you are, and can carry on a civil discussion without yelling at each other and using the word cunt.''

I almost blushed at that last reference, my mother would've killed me if she had known I'd handled this whole thing with worse language than a two dollar ho'. I was so embarrassed I couldn't even work up enough fire to get pissed about him talking to me like I was a five year old, and his five year old nonetheless.

''Giovanna our house is smoke free.''

I wasn't surprised by that, with my luck their house was probably alcohol free and you couldn't curse either, but I didn't make any smart ass comments. I stayed silent in my seat until Nick opened my door and I nervously followed him and his father up the path to the house.


	6. Children

**A/N: Thanks so much for the words of encouragement SuperNatural1985 and PeinVPuppy.**

**Sorry for the late update, but after I left the land of the Sorrrentinos (i.e. Italy) I continued my vacation for a month in France and did the whole roughing it with no Internet access thing. Now that school is starting I'm back home and plan on updating more regularly. In addition, I had originally planned to make this chapter from Gia's point of view, but Antonio was dying to be the narrator again.**

As usual I own nothing related to the Women of the Otherworld and Otherworld universe as those series as well as their plots, ideas, and characters belong to the talented Kelley Armstrong.

***Language notes-**

''Ha una sigaretta?'' – Do you have a cigarette?

''No mi dispiace ma non fumo'' – No, I'm sorry but I don't smoke

*I put those two phrases in Italian to add some flavor but since I didn't want to subtitle a lot of the dialogue, please note that all exchanges between Antonio and Mirella are in Italian because at the time of their meeting Mirella did not speak English.

I sat down on the library sofa, staring at them, at both of my children. It was the first time I had ever used the plural form of that word, children. Since I was sixteen years old it had always been Nick but now Nicholas and Giovanna were sitting side by side, like a set of matching olive toned and wavy haired bookends. I had always prided myself on being more modern than my father and grandfather; on revolutionizing the company and the way I'd raised Nick with more affection and less formality than was the norm during my childhood. Yet despite all of that, I had done what thousands of werewolves before me had done and abandoned my daughter because I suspected that she was human. That decision always tortured me, it always sat pressing on the back of my brain where the medulla is, but after all this time it was a dull pain like an old sore back injury, but now seeing Giovanna across from me with her brother attempting to inconspicuously study her features, the pain returned full force and it was as sharp and as mind numbing as my first change.

Right away I could feel all those old sentiments multiply tenfold. I was transported, the scenes that had haunted me only at night or in the dead quiet of Stonehaven came back to me and all I could smell was blood and sweat. Even from an almost twenty year old memory I could still feel Mirella's eyes boring into me and all of a sudden my suit started prickling my skin as if it were made out of needles and my watchband felt deathly tight. I could smell the sweat and blood that still hung in the room from the delivery, but it was her eyes that made me sick. The way she screamed at me, how she called me a traitor. That I had betrayed her and she never wanted to know my face, that's the part that made a werewolf with the blood of two generations of alphas flowing in his veins feel like a bottom feeder. I couldn't see Gia anymore or smell her cigarette smoke and sale perfume from the Macy's junior department. All I could feel was the course paper of the envelope as I carefully handed it to her mother; I could almost see it on the coffee table before me with its carefully licked edges slightly open from the brick of bills shoved inside of it. That was the last time Mirella and I had met, to her knowledge at least. And as I carefully closed my eyes to keep the library from spinning, all I was greeted with was the sound of her tearing open the envelope and ripping all the bills to pieces as I walked out the door.

''She looks like us.'' Nick's voice catapulted me into the present but I was still reeling from the images that had played out before me like a hologram of all my worst mistakes so I didn't acknowledge his comment with anything more than a slight uncertain nod.

''I mean, I don't know where she got that attitude from, but the way she looks...''

Nick never finished his sentence he just rested his hand on the arm of the sofa and kept his gaze fixed on Giovanna as if he could see her entire life story by comparing the shapes of their lips and noses. Giovanna looked more nervous than she had earlier in my office, she was a ball of yarn that had almost completely unraveled and it seemed as if the only thing that was keeping her together those last few hours was a pack of cigarettes, a slew of profanities, and biting sarcasm. She stopped chewing her lip to open her mouth ever so slightly but nothing came out and I watched as her brain wrestled her vocal chords for ten minutes before they were finally able to cooperate long enough to deliver a coherent thought.

''You gonna tell us what happened or what?''

She was as blunt and direct as always. And I looked between her and Nick before I loosened my watchband and began telling a story that I had repeated to no one save for Jeremy.

I had been in Venice as part of an extended tour through Italy and it was my last week there. I cursed myself for going there, it was summer and the city reeked of tourists, camera film, and sweat covered fanny packs. My werewolf senses were so completely overwhelmed that in an attempt to seek out some sensory refuge I had wandered far from the main guide book's suggested route and found myself in a corner of the city that was so quiet that I could hear the water moving lazily through the canals as clearly as I could hear a rabbit's blood circulating from its heart all the way to its legs as it tried to escape the sound of my paws. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and before I could return my hand to my right pocket I noticed a young woman walking towards me with her lip clenched between her teeth. She was beautiful but not in the way I was used to defining it, there was something about her that was odd, her red lipstick was almost too bright, and I wasn't quite sure if her clothes went together or not. Still, there was something about her, maybe it was the way she seemed completely unfazed by the fact that it was three hundred degrees outside and she had on a pair of leather boots. Or the way her hair that was completely untouched by a hairdresser fell from the bottom of her straw fedora all the way down to the side of her white dress. I could hear her heart beating from beneath a wall of black buttons and stiff linen fabric before she finally stood right beside me and spoke.

''Ha una sigaretta?''

She let out a smile that was just large enough for me to become completely distracted by that pair of too bright lips, so much so that it took me a few minutes to remember that she had asked me a question.

''No mi dispiace ma non fumo''

At that time I was able to understand Italian extremely well but for some reason sometimes when it came to responding I tripped and fell over my words. But I had known enough to tell her that I didn't smoke. She looked at me uncertain of what to say once her icebreaker had been unwittingly shot down, but I recognized the signals, I could tell when a woman was interested so I decided to make a move and ask her out for dinner.

''But how about dinner tonight''

''I'm busy''

''Tomorrow night then?''

I could see here considering it and there was a glint of agreement in her eyes before she surprised me and ran her hands through her hair before she rejected me.

''I'm busy every night.'' She smiled at me and then walked away, and so began our game. Nearly every day we would fortuitously run into each other. Sometimes I would catch her leaning against the wall as if she were expecting me to pick her up for a date and other times I would be the one to discover her. We played hide and seek across the city for days, and every time we found each other I would receive a reward from her, a name, a laugh, a smile. When it was nearly time for me to go back to New York, I cancelled my return ticket. I was looking forward to those moments of ours too much to go back home before I'd had that one dinner, and in the back of my mind this feeling that rose up from the soles of my feet and came to rest in the pit of my stomach terrified me.

I was comfortable with her and that was dangerous. We had barely spoken to each other but already I saw it happening. I was trying to delude myself into thinking that she was a nobody, a mere acquaintance, a woman I had consistently run into by pure chance, a perfectly rational statistical normality given how small Venice was. Yet at the same time I knew that I was stalking her. Everyday I traced her scent alongside every canal, into every store, and outside of all the buildings. I got some genre of sick torture knowing that I was so close to destroying myself. I promised myself that it would be the last day, but then that scent of hers would fly through my window at night and alter every neuron in my brain, so that by morning I was on the hunt again.

One morning I had tracked her down to some office and my hands hesitated to push the door open, but that smell beckoned me and in my mind I could see her walking through the halls with the ends of her handkerchief peeking out from behind her hair. I waited outside the building until I was bombarded by her scent and the oddness of her Veneto accent.

''You know I'm gonna have to call the police if you keep stalking me.''

I smiled at her comment. Her rejections were part of her humor, part of the way she expressed herself, just like the bright red lipstick and the strange patterned scarves she always wore around her neck.

''Or you could just have dinner with me, maybe that would get me to stop following you for once.''

She contemplated it the way she had done dozens of times before, but this time she pulled a marker from her pocket and folded up the sleeve of my shirt. In her clean handwriting she wrote an address on my arm with a time and in that moment I felt a way I hadn't felt since I met Nick's mother.

Surprisingly Nick was the one to interrupt me as his sister sat silently in the seat trying to picture her parents awkwardly running into each other on the street twenty years ago.

''So then you made a baby with her and left right?''

''Yes Nicholas''

He was beginning to sound like his Brooklyn counterpart, but I didn't reprimand him for it. I just answered plainly as I tried to stop the floodgate of memories that were racing through the neurons of my brain from completely taking over my mind.

''Is that why you were off when you came back from that trip? You and Jeremy would stay all locked up in his room whispering for hours.''

I heard Giovanna's voice and it startled me, because it was missing all the harshness, the attitude, and in its place was an odd softness that I had never heard from her.

''You didn't know did you, what she was, you thought she was human so you bounced.''

I nodded, regrettably.

''She should have told you. One of you shoulda said something you think in between all that baby making she coulda said she was a witch and you could have copped to being a werewolf. Everything, everything's all fucked up because neither of you said anything.''

She stood up before Nick even had a chance to process that she had said the word witch. She dug her lighter out of her pocket and I could hear the sound of hurried feet before she slammed the front door closed to go have a lung cell killing session on the stoop.

Nick's face turned serious but he didn't ask any questions he only looked towards the direction of the door before he fidgeted in his seat and looked me directly in the eye, his wolf just on the borderline of a challenge.

''Were you in love with her?''

''Yes.''

He nodded softly and with a resolve I had rarely seen on his face, he stood up and walked away from me, until for the second time that evening I heard the click of the front door unlocking.


	7. Sisters

A/N:This chapter is from Nick's pov, I felt like he should have more of a voice in all of this.

As usual I own nothing related to the Women of the Otherworld and The Otherworld universe as those series as well as their plots, ideas, and characters belong to the talented Kelley Armstrong.

For a while I just stood on the stoop and stared at her standing barefoot on our manicured lawn with a cloud of smoke framing her face. I was still pissed off. I didn't cope well with feeling used and violated, and the wolf hated that after all those months of lunch time chats and coffee breaks that he hadn't been able to sniff out his own sister, his own blood. Her lying made me distrust her, if she could keep a secret like that for more than 6 months what else could she possibly be hiding beneath the smell of cigarettes and an awkward smile? But even with all that anger welled up inside of me like a powder keg, I felt some kind of pull that was almost magnetic. The wolf was angry at her lack of respect but it also felt a need to protect her, like she was an out of line pup. I watched her lay down on the grass, sprawled out with a cigarette in her hand like something out of an indie movie, and I immediately took off my Prada loafers and cashmere dress socks before I strode across the lawn and sat down next to her.

''For the record I still think you acted like a selfish secretive asshole, and I don't completely trust you.''

Even though I cursed and name called my words came out softer than I had expected them to. I folded my hands on my bent up knees while she rolled her head so she could stare up at me as she spoke.

''I need a rain check on the name callin, I just can't do it right now. I mean I get it you know, you got a right to be pissed and if I dish this kinda shit out I should be able to take it. But I need a minute where I don't gotta think about any of this.''

I looked down at her and for the first time I saw how young she really was. It was easy to forget that when she was in dress up clothes, cursing like a mechanic, or acting like one of the guys, but laying down in the grass with that worried look on her face really betrayed the fact that she was just a kid. A tough, sneaky, nicotine stained foul mouthed one who had a habit of making g's and r's disappear from half the words in the English language, but still, just a kid. In a normal world she was the age of a girl that Noah or Reese would go out on a date with or ask for notes from English class, she wasn't even old enough to drink and she had chosen to enter into emotional warfare with a werewolf family. All of that made me understand why she looked like she wanted to just drink a juice box with some graham crackers and take a nap.

''Did your mom put you up to this?''

She sat up and for the first time she looked me straight in the eyes

''Do I look like somebody that can get put up to somethin'?''

I didn't break eye contact with her, even though I didn't trust her I knew one thing that was the God's honest truth, she may be a liar, a good actress, and have absolutely no tact whatsoever but she was also stubborn as fuck, and I doubted that anyone would be able to make her do anything.

''Good point. So what's the deal then, why bring out chaos after eight months of playing the perfect secretary? I would've taken this better if you just walked in there and actually told the truth, instead of lying and taking months worth of paychecks''

''Didn't I already say that I don't wanna talk about this no more?''

''Hey, you're the one who started that whole scene in the office not me. I don't get it, you're the one who came in and riled everyone up and now you want everyone to back off. It doesn't work like that. You wanted attention, you wanted to do this like a drama queen so this is how we're gonna do it.''

She looked down at her cigarette, and I kept wondering why I felt guilty every time I attacked her verbally, why I felt like I had to keep reminding myself that she was just a kid, and why my dad saying that he had loved her mother kept repeating over and over again in my head. My thoughts kept bouncing between wanting to scold her and asking her a whole bunch of stupid questions that had nothing to do with situation we were in, like what elementary school she went to and if she had a boyfriend. When she finally answered me back her voice was the softest I had heard it all day, and if I hadn't been able to smell her I would have thought it had come from someone else.

''I never cashed the checks.''

I didn't respond I just let her talk. I got the feeling that's what she had wanted to do all day, but everything just kept getting fucked up. It was a volatile subject and somewhere along the way, the grenade she had been holding had just blown up in her face.

''I was gonna say something at the job interview. But I said to myself, you know, I'll get to see what the guy is like for a week, I'll get to know 'im. That way if I scared him off I'd at least know what he's like. But I got in too deep. I started workin there too long, I started hangin out with you on my breaks, and all of a sudden I couldn't say nothin'. I kept wantin to say something but nothing came out, and today, today I just kinda threw it all up you know. This, it didn't go down the way I wanted it to either, and that's no lie.''

I yanked my tie out of its knot and dropped it to the ground. The way her hands shook while she spoke made her words seem honest, but none of what had happened was sitting well with me. The lies, the drama and the goddamn cigarette smell setting my nostrils on fire were all working together to make me feel like I had eaten two week old Chinese take out.

''Do you have to smoke. I don't really care what you do with your lungs but your killing my fucking noise.''

She closed her hand around the cigarette and I watched as she showed me her empty hand with the same cheesy smile of some magician making a coin disappear at a kid's birthday party. I knew about magic from Paige and the other witches we had met through the council, but there was something about the way Gia did it that made it look effortless. It looked so natural coming from her that it didn't even seem like magic, it felt just as ordinary as if she had put out the cigarette with the bottom of her shoe. Well that is if she had actually been wearing shoes.

I started playing with my tie clip, completely unsure of what to say. When Reese and Noah first started to live with us I was happy to know that I was gaining siblings, but now that I had a real flesh and blood one sitting next to me, I had no idea what to do with her. I wished I was Clay and could just let my animal instincts take over and tell me what to do, but I wasn't. Reese had been a mutt and Noah was loosely connected to the pack at best but they had somehow gained enough of my trust to live in my house and become packbrothers. If I could accept a mutt, there had to be someway I could deal with my own sister; the problem was I just didn't know what that way was yet. It was so much easier to deal with someone when they weren't as personally connected to you, when they were a mutt who you had no history with instead of a girl that carried a library full of secrets that could all affect the way you thought about the only parent you'd ever had. She was proof that I didn't know everything about my father, that no matter how close we were he still had secrets and a side of him that I had never seen. There was someone out there that knew him intimately and she wasn't some mysterious figure like my mom had been, she was a real person that lived in Brooklyn with my sister. My father had loved someone who I could have passed on the street or stood behind on line at Starbuck's, and my father's secrets came in a package that looked like me and was sitting on my lawn with grass stains on her sleeves.

''You look like you ate a bad dorito or somethin'.''

As usual her timing was inappropriate and even I knew that it was probably the worst word choice, but I laughed anyway. This day had been shit and stressful enough to bring a change; but that one really badly placed comment had made me laugh.

''It's a lot. All of this is just a lot.''

She seemed to accept that as an answer, because she didn't say anything else for at least twenty minutes. I was wondering if my dad would come running out of the house when he heard the silence, thinking that we had tried to pick up where we had left off when we first got in the car and had finally gotten pissed off enough to try and kill each other.

''You gotta phone on you somewhere. My ma I, I never came home from work.''

I fished the phone out my pocket and handed it to her. She took it almost reluctantly and I could see her hesitate before she started dialing the number. Gia was nervous but who the hell wouldn't be if they had to explain to their mother what had just happened. I couldn't understand anything she said once she started speaking because the air was filled with phrase after phrase of Italian and languages were never really my thing. Even if I had known Italian though I don't think I'd understand a word that had been said because I was too busy trying to listen to the sound of the voice that was floating through the phone's speakers. I wanted to know what the voice of the woman my father had loved sounded like. The voice of the woman he had described with the too bright lipstick and the habit of playing hard to get. Her voice surprised me because even though it sounded panicked it was softer than Gia's. The two of them were kind of like a song almost, Gia's assertive voice alternating with the sound of her mother's lighter one. All of a sudden the song stopped and Gia looked over at me with an unsure look in her eyes before she finally awkwardly switched back to English. 

''She wants Antonio to give to her the address, now.''

As I took the phone from her and walked back into the house I silently wished that I had eaten earlier because this was gonna be one hell of a long night.


	8. Mothers

A/N :I wrote this chapter from Antonio's perspective, then Nick's, then Gia's but it just didn't sound right so I wrote it from Gia's mom's point of view and from Antonio's just to try something different, the story is named after her so why not let her speak. I was holding back on her p.o.v because I didn't want to rush things but sometimes the characters speak for themselves. I also had to make sure I had her character down, and her thoughts and way of telling a story were distinguishable from Antonio, Nick's and Gia's.

As usual I own nothing but Gia and Mira, everything else Otherworld related belongs to Kelley Armstrong.

Thanks for reviewing Ashes2Dust18 and RebellAngell21. And Ashes2Dust18 you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

*Language notes: Sto aspettando- I'm waiting

I could hear the phone being passed around, changing hands awkwardly, until suddenly I heard a breath on the other line. I closed my eyes, but I could still feel everything. I could feel Antonio breathing next to me, and I was a teenager. But then it disappeared somewhere between the bars that were over the window and the clicking of the right burner on the gas stove trying to light itself, those feelings of warmth, familiarity, necessity gave way to anger. I felt a migraine traveling all the way down to the left side of my neck. I wanted to yell and scream at him until my rage flung me all the way upstate where my screams would be met with a pair of dark brown eyes set in a smooth olive toned frame. I wanted to cry. I wanted to pretend that I didn't care about him anymore, that I could be as cold and as business like as he could. I wanted to hear his voice, and I didn't.

''Yes?''

The word was tiny, as unnoticeable as the light in my living room to someone standing on a roof in Manhattan somewhere and squinting at Brooklyn, but from it I knew nothing had changed. He sounded the same. That voice was still as strong and magnetic as ever, whether he was speaking Italian or English it didn't matter. There was so much of him in his own voice that it made my mouth run dry. Hearing him was every bit as horrible as I imagined ever seeing him again would be. Antonio Sorrentino was on the phone and he hadn't changed, but I had.

He repeated himself, hesitantly, quietly; uncertain of his own voice, maybe even uncertain of who he was really speaking to.

''Yes?''

That anger was scratching at me again. It was in the pilot seat, sending me things; flashes and scents of words. The types of things that made me turn the shower on some nights and cry into a blue bathroom towel so Gia wouldn't hear me. She thought that I could do everything, she wrote her College application entry about me. I saw it there on her computer, double-spaced, glowing and proud; paragraphs about a woman who she claimed was stronger than anyone else in the world. If only she knew that I had this wish visit my thoughts from time to time, a wish that I was more like her. Gia spent the first six years of her life as my translator, subway map, and lawyer. Every English word wallpapering my brain was cut hung and pasted there by her. He would never know what it was like to have a six year old understand the school system better than you, or to stay awake staring at a leak in the ceiling and feeling completely and utterly useless. It was embarrassing, I can't put into words how it felt to walk up to that maroon stone building, into that hallway filled with bells, lockers, and the smell of crayon wax , looking for the dull wooden door of the school secretary's office with Gia's red hair ribbons tickling the back of my hand. I could barely fill out the forms to register her, all those words, every single last one of them fought me and broke off the tip of my pencil. I had to ask Gia what they meant, and the secretary frowned at me. The coven too was a wall of frowns, we were a part of it and we weren't. They had grown up together, babysat each other's daughters, and had Christmas parties with cookies, eggnog and casserole dishes. We were outsiders to them, my accent and patterned scarves, Gia's abilities and frankness. I used to be in love with my oddness, the way my clothes never matched, how I found unusual things funny, my awkward smile, but the coven mistook it for me being frivolous and flighty, two things that I never associated with myself. They helped us out of charity and not sincerity, and they made sure that I knew my place was not at the top of their food chain, no matter how strong my daughter was.

*************************************************************Antonio POV********

I felt my blood run cold as all the colour immediately drained from my face and leaked out of the heals of my shoes to settle between the grains of the dark cherry wood floors. Gia's mother had been nothing more than an ephemeral dream that tortured me endlessly in those ten minutes before my alarm clock made my room erupt into a series of crescendoing beeps, but now she wasn't something that could be sent away by a daily electronic orchestra that played live from my nightstand table everyday at six am sharp. Her words wouldn't be vague snippets of conversation that played on continuous loop inside my head if I had that one extra glass of wine or caught a waft of a scent that brought with it a faint sense of familiarity. She was something in the present, she was a living voice, a voice that could harm, that could soothe, a voice with the power to act and react, and the gravity of that revelation made me reluctant to take the phone from Nick's hand. The two of them were staring at me, already seeming to fall perfectly in step with their role as two siblings ceding all the power and decision making to their father, and I reluctantly took the phone into my hand and gingerly brought it to my ear, the desire to save face in front of Nick and his sister far outweighing the anxiety I felt about hearing Mirella's voice ringing through my ears. I was so busy imagining how her voice had changed and composing the new timber and rhythm in my head that I only managed to let one single word hesitantly role off my tongue.

''Yes?''

I could hear her take in a breath on the other line and I could imagine her biting down on the right side of her lip exactly the same way I had seen Gia do when she was trying to get the office computer to unfreeze. When she finally spoke, I was shocked by the peculiarity of her voice, I had never heard her speak English and it sounded foreign to me. Syllables were haphazardly emphasized and all the words that ended in vowels seemed to get stuck to the roof of her mouth like they were made of peanut butter. Yet it still sounded remarkably flat and awkward compared to the light and airy Italian voice I had grown accustomed to, almost as if someone had removed the melody from my favorite Frank Sinatra song and rearranged all the orchestra's parts until the only thing it had common with the original version was the title they shared.

''I'm coming to get Gia, give to me the address.''

''By the time you come from Brooklyn it will already be late, I can have her driven to the city tomorrow morning.''

''It's my daughter do you think I care about the lateness? I don't want any favors from you Antonio, give the address.''

Her sharpness caught me off guard. There was a sting in her voice that I could feel all the way from Brooklyn, but I had no desire to back down. Tonight had already been a full blown disaster and Nick had already seen far too much of my personal history to add Giovanna's mother coming here and opening up a Pandora's box of emotional issues that I had never fully dealt with. Or maybe I had seen too much.

''Mira.''

She interrupted me before I could continue my thought.

''Miss. Agnello.''

It was a linguistic slap in the face. I had never had to refer to her by her last name and her sharp insistence on it gave me an idea of exactly where this conversation was going. I wasn't naïve enough to believe that if perchance we ever spoke again that she would have a case of amnesia and forget the fact that I had chosen to leave, but I had never anticipated this either. The title she had requested I use felt about as comfortable in my mouth as a lollipop made of battery acid.

''Miss, Agnello, I think this is a bit unreasonable. It doesn't make any sense to go out of your way to drive all the way here and then turn around and drive back, when Giovanna can be sent over first thing in the morning.''

''And you would know, everything about not wanting to go out of your way, right? Don't give me orders if I want to come then I come, because she's in your house now, suddenly you feel like caring about whether I am going out of the way or not. She's my daughter and I am an adult, so I can make for myself decisions, If I said I want to drive all the night to get her, then this is my problem. Give the damn address and stop arguing with me. I'd rather drive for a week then have her sent over like a package''

I felt the air leave my chest, it had been a while since I felt insulted by someone, and I inconspicuously sneaked a glance Nick to see if he had heard the other voice drift through the phone. Silently hoping that he hadn't heard those words from the hybrid accent that sometimes lapsed into the Brooklyn overtones that Gia carried. I naturally fell into my role as mediator the way I was used to doing with the boys in the house, but Mirella was not an Australian former mutt or an adolescent werewolf seeking a father figure, she wasn't a wolf at all.

''Maybe it would be best if you calmed down before you drove over here.''

I knew I shouldn't have said that, but apparently I had learned nothing from Gia's temperament earlier in the day.

''When it's my daughter I feel something. I can't just leave my kid somewheres and go back to watching the television. ''

She didn't explicitly mention the way I had left her, but it still hurt me. I could read between the lines and I knew exactly what she meant, when it came to Gia she had feelings and I didn't. That I could go on living, working, breathing even when I didn't have the slighthest idea where my daughter was. What had happened to Nick's mother had shattered my core, but Nick's mother was dead. Dead people can't yell at you or hate you. As much as I had grieved over her death and all the pain that it had caused me, I had some finality with the situation. What happened with Giovanna's mother was completely unresolved, it was a deep wound with a flimsy bandage over it that was just waiting to be picked open again, but never in a million years had I imagined that Mirella herself would come back into my life to do all the picking.

I looked over at Nick and I could tell from his expression that I was wearing a face he had never seen before. I thought I could be like my father, and handle these things without so much as a twitch, but I couldn't. Everything was unraveling because of one human resources decision I'd made, yet I felt as if I wanted it to happen. From the day I interviewed Giovanna I felt an inexplicable familiarity. I didn't have to bring her to the house after she revealed to me what she was, I didn't have to pick up this phone and attempt to speak to her mother, but maybe taking in Noah and Reese and seeing Jeremy and even that stray dog Karl establish relationships that had nothing to do with the pack or producing heirs, made me subconsciously want to confront this.

''Sto aspettando Antonio.''

I rested my hand against the bookshelf and gave her the address. I was being ridiculous. If she wanted to come get Giovanna, that was her right I would do the same thing if Nick had never came home from work and was at a stranger's house. A stranger, that's all I was to them. Someone that didn't have a place in their lives outside of the company name that appeared on the bottom of Giovanna's paychecks. I gave Mirella the address and then she hung up, I didn't blame her, we had nothing else to say to each other. What could you possibly talk about with a women who you loved but had abandoned twenty years ago? I handed Nick the phone, and we all just stood there awkwardly staring at each other as if we were at an office Christmas Party, until my son spoke.

''Are you alright?''

''I'm fine Nicholas.'' I wasn't, but sometimes when you had children no matter how old they were, you had to lie to them. Even if they asked a part of them expected you to be fine when things got hairy, even when they were old enough to look after themselves and your face said otherwise, being a father meant showing your children that you were all right and in control.

''For the record I told her not to come.'' Her voice sounded tired, and she walked over to the couch and laid down on her side, presumably to wait for her mother. Nick stood in the doorway with his arms crossed until her breathing evened out and we realized that all that yelling running and smoking had gotten the best of her and Giovanna Agnello had finally drifted off to sleep.


	9. Parents

A/N: Thanks to Supernatural1985 for reminding me about Noah and Reese with her pm and suggesting that idea.

**And a big thanks to everyone that's reviewed in general, and that has updated their women of the otherworld fanfictions, all those updates have inspired me to get out of my writer's block and update before 2011 ends.**

**Just as a general note, I was thinking about adding some action later on but as there is some serious emotional baggage between these characters and I introduced two new ones, I don't want to rush anything. In addition, I've also posted character pictures for Gia and Mirella on my profile page. And happy new year and holidays to everyone. **

**As usual I own nothing. Everything except Mira and Gia belongs to Kelley Armstrong.**

***Translation Notes: **senti. Nonostante tutto. questo è … imprescindibile = Listen, Despite everything, this is absolutely necessary.

When I woke up I thought I was back in my room in Brooklyn and that everything had been an awful dream caused by the type of hardcore indigestion brought on by too much greasy pizza and boxed wine. But the sheets felt different and the smell was all wrong. It smelled empty and generic, and my room always smelled like sage and those little sacks of potpourri that my mom put all over the house in white satin bags with little pink ribbons. Everything had gone so horribly wrong that all I wanted to do was sink into the bed and disappear in the spaces between what were no doubt five hundred thread count sheets. I didn't know what I had expected to happen but maybe daytime television had polluted my brain so much that I believed announcing yourself to long lost family members was simple. That everyone would be surprised at first and then you would cry, exchange phone numbers and then set up a lunch date at a diner that smelled like weak coffee and freshly cleaned blue vinyl seats. My fingers twitched beneath the satin pillowcase and I knew that my unrealistic expectations had nothing to do with the tube and everything to do with me. That beneath all my toughness, when it came to family I was as naïve as a five year old putting out cookies and cold milk for Santa on Christmas Eve.

I sat up in the bed and leaned back against the headboard, but all I could hear were the sheets rustling instead of the familiar squeaking of my old brass headboard. It made more noise than the tin man and it smelled like a gigantic pickle jar filled with years' worth of forgotten pennies. I'd found it at some garage sale and had somehow convinced my mom that I had to have it because it had character. When I looked back at the headboard I remembered that my mom was driving here and I imagined my parents standing in that oversized living room like characters from all those dusty leather bound books lining the Sorrentino library walls, facing off on a polished cherry wood battlefield like two opposing armies waiting for the signal to fire their cannons. It was exactly why I hadn't wanted her to come, the risk of emotional carnage was much higher for her because they had the history, because she would get this strange look on her face and her nose would wrinkle when she read his name on my paycheck envelopes. Because her voice sounded flat whenever I called to tell her I got to work okay.

I kicked off the comforter with all the force of a cage fighter and got out of the bed that felt about as warm and cozy to me as I imagined eating a bowl full of nails for breakfast in my day old eye shadow with a one-night stand would be. There was a pair of clothes on the nightstand, a Burberry warm up suit, but I couldn't bring myself to touch it. My wrinkled white shirt and work skirt would have to do for now. I felt strange accepting things from them, the way you feel when you see a trampled five dollar bill on the floor and you're not really sure whether you should shove it in your back pocket or not.

I slowly got out the bed and looked at myself in the mirror that was standing on the opposite side of the room. I looked like I had done the walk of shame three mornings in a row, drank five shots of jack and then fell asleep on the A-train. Plus I was hungry as all hell, since I'd never eaten lunch. Note to self next time I get myself into these kind of situations at least pack a sandwich, because cigarettes, gum, and an old pack of life savers do not constitute as food. I sighed and hesitantly made my way into the hallway, the cold wood stinging the bottom of my still bare feet, as I wondered what these people had against using area rugs. Maybe it was a werewolf thing? I kept walking unsure of whether I had even gone down the stairs or not, my brain was a muddy mushy mess, and I could feel a piece of dried up mascara scratching the corner of my eye.

I passed by a room and instantly got the painful burning sensation of someone trying to light a match on the back of my neck. There were more of them. More werewolves besides Nick and Mr. Sorrentino, Antonio, whatever the hell I was supposed to call him. I stared at the floor watching the rainbow colored flashes from a television spill over the tops of my feet, before finally touching the fancy ass handle and opening the door. Instantly I felt my stomach punch my vocal chords. There were two kids, two teenagers in there playing video games. I knew I shouldn't have been surprised, why wouldn't a guy who already had a son and a love child not have a whole bunch of living breathing one night stand mementos running around. Blonde hair and the other one was a brunette, they looked nothing like Nick and I, but I guess Sorrentino Sr. followed the whole variety is the spice of life policy. It still made me pissed, I kept telling myself over and over again that I didn't want anything from them, that I just came to find out what species I was a mix of, but as I walked up to that blonde one with the constipated look on his face, I felt angry. How come he found them, how come they got to live in the house with the rug phobia and the golden doorknobs? The house with the iron railing on the stoop, the glass coasters, and the man who came home early on weekends to take them to the movies and ask them how school was going and the name of the girl they had been texting non stop for a week.

''I'll get Nick for you.''

The blonde haired one spoke, and I could tell by the appraising looks from him and the dark-haired one who would be cute if he did something to his hair, that he had probably mistook me for another one of Nick's overnight play dates. I really didn't get it, maybe it was the whole no shoes combined with smudged mascara look, but why did people always think that I was doing one of the Sorrentino's instead of making the connection that I was one of them, genetically speaking of course.

''How many goddamn kids does this guy got?''

I didn't realized I had said anything out loud until I heard Nick's voice behind me, it was lighter than earlier, but he still sounded like all he wanted to do was go make himself a stiff drink.

''Two, just you and me Brooklyn. Noah, Reese I'll fill you guys in later, just no matter what you hear going on stay in this room, Gia you're mom's outside and she has that face you had in the car.''

I raised my eyebrow, and bit my lip trying to squint into the slightly darkened room. Maybe that dark haired one was cute, even with the bad hair. I shrugged off the thought and followed Nick back to that goddamn living room again, Now was really not the time to be thinking about getting laid, but maybe that meant that Nick and I had more in common than I had imagined. I made a mental u-turn back to his phrase. He hadn't called me Brooklyn since we were still almost friends, since the last time we had gone to Starbuck's together and he bought me a venti redeye. The day I had busted his balls for not so inconspicuously checking out the woman writing the names on people's frappucino cups.

''Are we a'ight?''

He shrugged and paused for just a second before he turned around and looked at me as he spoke.

''We'll see how it goes.''

I could sense my mother before I actually saw her. It was that odd numb sensation you get when the dentist shoots you up with so much Novocain that your mouth feels like it was filled with a thousand of those little marshmallows that come in the deluxe packages of Swiss Miss. That's what magic was. It wasn't fantastic or some over the top 3-D surround sound orgy of Latin chanting, demonic rituals and special effects that were worthy of an Oscar. Magic was that prickly feeling you got on the tip of your tongue when you were two seconds and one more sip of coffee away from remembering someone's name. It was that fuzziness that fogs up your brain in that awkward time slot between your last dream and the annoying ass sound of your alarm clock having an electronic orgasm on the nightstand.

Nick guided me to the living room with his hand awkwardly gripping my shoulder. Ma and Nick's father were standing across from each other like they had never met before. And I saw 's face soften as he looked at her, but my ma's face looked hard and decided.

''Gia let's go.''

I looked at her and then at Nick. I might've felt about as comfortable as an ass full of hemorrhoids in that place, but maybe something good could actually come out of this. I had no intention of getting all Lindsay Lohan à la the parent trap and trying to get those two crazy Italians together, but this was a chance for me to know something about myself. To know who my grandparents were, to know why I always had that one piece of hair that would never lay flat, and where I got my eye color from. A chance to know all that cheesy shit that I had tried to act like I didn't give a rat's red ass about.

''I wanna stay the weekend. You know if it's a'ight with you and you don't have no plans or nothin'.''

I looked at my father, and I saw him hesitate before he answered me, caught between having the opportunity to have this very messy situation go away, and possibly having something else unknown and intangible. Having me here on loan for the weekend like a rental from blockbuster wouldn't erase what he did, but maybe it was start. What if we were actually supposed to fix this thing, to make it work out somehow? I wasn't an optimist, I just wanted to know what it was like to have a guy around, to talk to someone about practical things and watch really bad action movies with, and if he turned out to be a dick then at least I would know. At least I wouldn't spend my entire life wondering what the man who gave me the other half of my chromosomes was like.

****************Antonio POV***********************************

I had never been much of a daydreamer but when Giovanna said stay the weekend I found myself lost in some fantasy world. Mirella would stay the weekend, we'd make love and then afterwards I'd look at her impossibly tangled hair and listen to her off-key humming, before feeling the seismic rumbling of my chest erupting with laughter after she said something completely off-color. I would see how she had changed, devoting my time to seeing if the same old scars were still waiting for me on her neck and the side of her right hip. And then she would go into the kitchen with her hair in an awkward bun held in place by an old pen, and she'd make that terrible coffee of hers that smelled like burnt tires and could probably double as paint stripper. But none of that would ever happen, because I had destroyed everything like a little kid stepping on an anthill. It was too late to even attempt anything with her beyond direct eye contact but maybe if I let Gia stay the weekend I would never have to endure the pain of seeing her wearing the same angry expression as her mother.

''If agrees to it and I have a discussion with my alpha then yes, that would be alright.''

As soon as those words left my mouth Mirella looked at me and I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly self-conscious, and desperately wishing that I could hide the secret between us under one of the upholstered seat cushions. She despised me and she wore it on her face as conspicuously as an oversized campaign button pinned to the lapels of a winter jacket.

She looked different. All the awkward lines of her frame that I had learned to appreciate had smoothed and her hair had calmed down. Her features were the same but everything felt softer and there was a self assurance that hadn't been there before. Her awkwardness had all but disappeared and even though intellectually I knew that she had to have changed in the almost two decades since I had seen her, I wasn't prepared for the sight of a gorgeous woman in her late thirties standing in my living room and wearing all of Mira's old expressions and carrying that same scent. I still pictured the awkward young woman with the strange outfits, but it was obvious that just like Gia she had grown up without any of my doing. I hadn't been there to witness anything; they had suddenly just reappeared before me, a set of before and after photos on a late night infomercial.

''Why? It wasn't necessary to discuss with this alpha when you were making her''

I'd almost completely forgotten about that side of her, the sharp biting phrases she could roll off her tongue had all been eroded away by some idealistic version of her I had created over the years. Time had a way of manipulating people's personalities to the point that memories were often times more fiction than fact, and I found myself mentally wincing at the harshness of her statement. No matter how true it had been.

''Mirella just.''

Giovanna cut me off before I could even make a sentence that was worthy of any kind of punctuation. Nick's hand was still perched uncertainly on her shoulder, and my eyes rested on the crisp lines of his dress shirt clashing with her wrinkled nicotine scented ensemble.

''Ma, senti. Nonostante tutto. questo è … imprescindibile I just, I gotta do this. If they're all complete assholes then at least I'll know, but not knowing is gonna make me nuts. I'm an adult if I wanna deal with them, let me learn the hard way.''

Mirella wouldn't break eye contact with me, and I tried to place myself in her position. If this were Nick would I feel comfortable throwing him into a situation with someone who had abandoned him before he had even taken his first step or started eating solid food? If someone had left him like that I'd want to rip them to shreds with my bare hands and feed them to a pack of wild dogs, and judging by her face that was exactly the kind of fantasy Mirella was probably indulging in. I had to take control of the situation, it was ridiculous that out of all of the adults in the room, Giovanna, a teenage girl from Brooklyn who wasn't even old enough to order a glass of wine, and had every right to hate me for what I had done was being the most sensible and mature person standing in the library. I didn't know how Giovanna had any more words left in her, she looked as if she would collapse onto the floor if Nick's hand wasn't on her shoulder. I was still shocked, I was still ashamed that my son and possibly Noah and Reese were going to see the man they had looked up to and aspired to be like had been such a cowardly bastard. In that moment I hated myself more than I did the first day I had ever seen Giovanna, those gigantic hazel eyes of hers sadly peeking out from beneath the pink cotton cap the hospital gave to every newborn girl. I looked at Mirella and fingered my cufflinks, what I had done was my decision, I couldn't punish Gia because I was angry at my cowardice.

''Mirella, I would really like Giovanna to stay here for the weekend, and I promise you that she'll be alright. If I didn't have any intention of getting to know her, we all wouldn't be standing in the living room right now.''

She raised her left eyebrow and I saw a slight flash of red touch the side of her neck. I had said the wrong thing, although I had an inkling that nothing I could have said in that moment would have pleased her, the pope himself could have entered our living room and vouched that I had only positive intentions, and that cold deadly temper of hers would still make the entire house feel as icy as a Siberian winter.

''I see. Giovanna, you and" she paused and looked between me and Nicholas, visually establishing our relationship before she continued. '''s son, can look for something to discuss in the hallway for ten minutes, yes?''

''Honestly ma, if you gotta say something, I think I'll survive if I hear it, and Nicky over here isn't exactly still in pull-ups.''

She had a point but I agreed with Mirella, if this conversation was headed in the direction I imagined it would, then I preferred if Nicholas and his sister didn't hear, regardless of their ages and the fact that my former secretary used so much profanity that I wished she came with a built in sensor button.

''Nicholas take Giovanna into the kitchen.''

''Dad I can't, Gia's right, her and I aren't exactly in nursery school and I think we've both had enough secrets to last us into the afterlife.''

An icy silence fell over the room, but it didn't last long, Mirella wasted no time in following up on her earlier train of thought.

''So now that it's convenient for you to know her, that makes everything okay. I should just give her to you, smiling, and have full confidence in the person who went away before the ink on the birth certificate was dried.''

I felt sick to my stomach; seeing the mutated faces of all the rogue mutts Clay had tortured was like watching a Disney movie with Kate and Logan compared to this. I hadn't felt so tortured by guilt since I had inadvertently caused the death of Nick's mother, the first love of my life. I wasn't Jeremy, it was clear that I was meant to be alone; I had destroyed the only two women that I had ever been in love with. Nick's mother was six feet under the ground, her life barely even half lived, and Mirella was still alive but it was clear that she had never truly gotten past this. There was no ring marking her left hand, and there was an anger from her that only comes from bottling up something for so long that when it was finally uncorked anger leaked from ever pore in your body, and even your teeth felt like they were rotting with it.

''Mirella, this.''

''Don't call me that name.''

'' this isn't about us, I'm not saying I wasn't wrong, but now isn't the time for this conversation. This is about Giovanna, and she wants to stay the weekend so she can see for herself if I'm worth knowing, and if she wants to have her brother in her life. She already knows how you feel about me, I'm sure, but she wants to make her own decision about me and I think she's intelligent enough to do that.''

''He's right ma. I wanna see for myself how they are, and that's my right. So I'm gonna stay even if I don't got your permission.''

They exchanged a look, that secret non-verbal code that every parent seems to have with their children. It was followed by a series of brow furrowing, lip biting, and Giovanna's fingers vigorously twitching, but eventually the silence was broken, and Mirella let us all in on the outcome of their almost telepathic conversation.

"I still don't like this.''

She silently left the room and I could hear the trunk of the car let out a squeak as she opened it and slammed the lid shut, returning seconds later with a green duffle bag that she plopped in front of Giovanna's feet.

''I carried it, in case on the return, we stopped somewheres''

I watched her face soften as Gia left Nick's death grip to embrace her, afraid her mother would change her mind, or possibly just grateful to let someone hold her, and have thirty seconds of vulnerability without agonizing over the consequences.

''I'll be fine seriously, if they were psychopathic human eating were wolves they would've eaten me up faster than a white castle burger when were in the benz, or when I fell asleep.''

'' there's a guest house if..''

''I'll sleep inside the car, if anything happens to her, I will come in three seconds to rip you a new one.''

A part of me had wanted her to stay. The same part that wanted to slip my hand around her small wrist to stop her from walking out the door. There were still so many things I wanted to tell her. A million questions suddenly invaded my brain, each one flashing in my mind as clearly as a Broadway marquee as she made her way out of the house and towards the driveway. Even though she wasn't married had she found someone else? Did she remember the day we met as vividly as I did? Could there ever be a chance to repair what had happened between us? What would Noah, Nick, and Reese think of me now?

''Dad I'll get Gia settled in the guest room so you can call Jeremy.''

My only answer was a slight nod as I reluctantly punched in the alpha's phone number in rhythm to Nick and Giovanna's footsteps. The dial tone stopped and I took a diaphragm bursting breath before I finally spoke.

''Jeremy, I didn't mean to wake you up, but do you remember when I spent that year in Venice?''


End file.
